for two or three centuries more. died out, though survivals of it day.

But in course of time it

last even to our own

The decay of this social and economic system begins most clearly and markedly with the changes made by the Black Death (1348), and by the social revolution which followed it, of which the Peasants' Revolt was the first and most startling symptom (cf. ch. xii.). The legislation of Edward I. forms, again, another epoch from which to date the decay of manorial institutions. He laid the foundations of a system of national instead of local regulations for industry, and from that time forward the essentially local arrangements of the manors began to lose both their necessity and their utility. As Dr Cunningham says "In regard to commerce, manufactures, and to agriculture alike, the local authorities were gradually overtaken and superseded by the increasing activity of Parliament, till, in the time of Elizabeth, the work was practically finished." The essentially local and personal relations of the manor gave way to the more general and impersonal relations of national government and national economy.

1

2

Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. pp. 241-245.

CHAPTER VI

THE TOWNS AND THE GILDS

§ 48. The Origin of the Towns.

2

As in the case of the village, so also the town, in the modern sense of the word, had its origin in the primitive settlements of the people. The only difference between a town and a village lay, originally, in the number of inhabitants, and in the fact that the town was a more defensible place than the rural settlement, since it probably had a rampart or a moat surrounding it instead. of the mere hedges which ran round the villages.1 It was simply in the Anglo-Saxon period a more strictly organised form of the village community. In itself it was merely a manor or group of manors; as Professor Freeman puts it, one part of the district where men lived closer together than elsewhere.3 The town had at first a constitution like that of the primitive village, but its inhabitants had gradually gained certain rights and functions of a special nature.4 These rights and privileges had sometimes been received from the lord of the manor on which the town had grown up 5; for towns, especially provincial towns, were often at first only dependent manors, which gained safety and solidity under the protection of some great noble, prelate, or the king himself; who finally would grant the town thus formed a charter."

1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. v. 92. The Anglo-Saxons called them "burh” -i.e., "boroughs." 2 Ib. 3 Norman Conquest, v. p. 470. 'Thus Lincoln, Stamford, and other towns had certain rights of jurisdiction, sac and soc; Domesday (Lincoln).

5 In other cases they were probably the inherited rights of a free community.

Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. v. p. 93, who quotes examples of the eorles tun, cyninges burh, cyninges tun.

? This charter would give rights of jurisdiction over the citizens, of taking toll, &c.; cf. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. v. 106. Such rights were also granted to private individuals.

§ 49. Rise of Towns in England.

Towns first became important in England towards the end of the Saxon period. Saxon England had never been a settlement of towns, but of villages or manors. But gradually towns developed, though differing widely in the circumstances and manner of their growth. Some grew up in the fortified camps of the invaders themselves,1 as being in a secure position; some arose from a later occupation of the once sacked and deserted Roman towns.2 Many grew silently in the shadow of a great abbey or monastery.3 Of this class was Oxford, which first came into being round the monasteries of Osney and S. Frideswide. Others clustered round the country houses of some Saxon king or earl. Several important boroughs owed their rise to the convenience of their site as a port or a trading centre. This was the origin of the growth of Bristol, whose rise resulted directly from trade; and London of course had always been a port of high commercial rank. A few other towns, like Scarborough and Grimsby, were at first only small havens for fishermen. But all the English towns were far less flourishing before the arrival of the Normans than they afterwards became.

The influence of the Danes, however, should be noted as

1 Especially in the case of the Danes; Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 91; Green, Hist. of Eng. People, i. 207.

2 Some of the Roman towns never quite lost their continuity of life; cf. Jessop, Studies by a Recluse, p. 120, who instances London, Chester, Lincoln, and Exeter; cf. also Green, History, i. 207.

3 Stubbs, I. v. 93; Freeman, Norman Conquest, v. 471; Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 103.

4 Green (History, i. 207) evidently follows Stubbs, u.8.

From very early times it had an active trade with Ireland; cf. Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 89, note; and Craik, British Commerce, i. 72.

6 Probably it was originally a hill-fort; and its name is said to mean the "hill fort by the water." Its importance in Roman times was very great; Green, Making of England, p. 3. In Saxon times it was left much to itself, but hedged in with a ring of Saxon agricultural settlements. Gomme, Village Comm., p. 52.

7 A fair attended by foreign merchants was held in Saxon times on Scarborough beach; Cunningham, i. 82, n. Grimsby merchants are mentioned in Rymer, Foedera, II. i. 110, 133. See also Rogers, Six Centuries, 104.

promoting the growth of towns. Though undoubtedly pirates, the Danish invaders were often also merchants, and often planted villages at centres suitable for commerce, or stimulated by their trade the growth of places which but for their coming might have remained undeveloped.1 Moreover, it is the towns of Danish origin that frequently show the most ancient municipal organisation; as the records of the five "Danish boroughs"-Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, Stamford, and Leicester-go to prove. Even to-day

near the heart of modern London the Church of St Clement Danes reminds us of those rough seafaring men, half pirates half traders, whose patron saint was Clement with his anchor.3

§ 50. Towns in Domesday.

If now we once more go back to our great authority, the survey made by William the Norman, we find that the status of the towns or boroughs is clearly recognised, though they are now regarded as held by the lord of the manor "in demesne," or, in default of a lord, as part of the king's demesne.* Thus Northampton at that time was a town in the king's demesne; Beverley was held in demesne by the Archbishop of York. It was possible, too, that one town might belong to several lords, because it spread over, or was an aggregate of, several manors or townships. Thus Leicester seems to have included four manors, which were thus held in demesne by four lords-one by the king, another by the Bishop of Lincoln, another by a noble, Simon de Senlis, and the fourth by Ivo of Grantmesnil, the sheriff. In later times it was held under one lord, Count Robert of Meulan, who had acquired the four portions for himself.

Now, in the Domesday Book there is mention made of forty-one provincial cities or boroughs, most of them being 1 Cunningham, i. 88.

2 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. ch. v. p. 93. For many years these five towns held together in a confederation which was the backbone of Danish power in the Midlands; cf. Jessop, Studies, p. 126.

3 For Danish influence see York Powell, Eng. Hist. Review, No. XVII. 4 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. xi. 408. Ib., p. 409. 6 lb.

p. 134.

5

the county towns of the present day. There are also ten fortified towns of greater importance than the others. They are Canterbury, York, Nottingham, Oxford, Hereford, Leicester, Lincoln, Stafford, Chester, and Colchester.1 London was a town apart, as it had always been, and was the only town which had an advanced civic constitution, being regulated by a port-reeve and a bishop, and having a kind of charter, though afterwards the privileges of this charter were much increased. London was of course a great port and trading centre, and had many foreign merchants in it. It was then, as well as in subsequent centuries, the centre of English national life, and the voice of its citizens counted for something in national affairs.3 The other great ports of England at that time were Bristol, Southampton, and Norwich, and as trade grew and prospered, many other ports rose into prominence (see p. 144).

There were also other towns which grew up merely as aggregates of traders, and had not acquired as yet any other cohesion than as organised communities. These formed the large class of mere market towns, which of course still exist in large numbers, still serving the purpose to which they originally owed their existence without growing much beyond their old proportions.

§ 51. Special Privileges of Towns.

It is not till the twelfth century that the towns begin to have an independent municipal history as self-governing boroughs, nor is it till the fifteenth century that we come to advanced municipal life and organisation. But, even at the time of the Norman Conquest, most towns, though small, were of sufficient importance to have a certain status of their own, with definite privileges.7 The privilege they strove for first of all was generally an immunity from appearing before the Court of Appeal where the king's officer 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. xi. 403. 2 Ib., p. 404. 3 Cf. Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 109.

4 It was the chief port of Southern England; Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 104. 5 Ib., p. 106. It was famed for its harbour; and, like many another disused port of the east coast, did a large trade with the Netherlands.

Mrs Green, Town Life, i. p. 11.

7 Stubbs, I. xi. 408.